Regional tension escalates on Israel-Hezbollah warfare; Hamas sends team to Cairo for Gaza ceasefire update

Hamas said a delegation would travel to Cairo on Saturday evening to receive an update on negotiations aimed at achieving a ceasefire in Gaza.

In a statement, Hamas spokesperson Izzat Al-Rishq said the team, led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya, was travelling “at the invitation of the mediators in Egypt and Qatar”. 

Middle East on edge after Israel bombs Lebanon 

Hours after 100 Israeli warplanes swooped over southern Lebanon, taking out thousands of Hezbollah missile launchers in what was called a pre-emptive strike, the Middle East remained braced for an expanded conflagration that could involve Iran and its allied militias.

The assault started at 5am local time and was based, Israeli officials said, on precise intelligence that Hezbollah was about to fire thousands of missiles at northern Israel as well as drones at a key intelligence centre just north of Tel Aviv in retaliation for the killing of its commander in July.

Israel declared a 48-hour state of emergency and shut its main airport for several hours, with numerous foreign airlines cancelling flights. Hezbollah responded by firing more than 200 projectiles, according to Israel, although officials said very limited damage was caused. One Israeli soldier was killed by falling debris, while three deaths were reported in Lebanon.

If Hezbollah had successfully executed an attack on targets in central Israel, the tit-for-tat fighting that’s been simmering on the border area for 10 months may have exploded into wider warfare. For now, some analysts said, a brief calm might ensue.

“It was a huge success that we detected the plans and now there is the possibility for both sides not to escalate this very complex situation,” said retired Brigadier General Ilan Biton, a former chief of defense for Israel’s air force. Both Israel and Hezbollah announced that, for now, their operations were over — despite ongoing low-level fighting.

Israel reopened its airport and eased restrictions on public gatherings imposed earlier in the day. Significantly, negotiations in Cairo aimed at establishing a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militia Hamas commenced as planned on Sunday, according to the prime minister’s office.

“This exchange is more likely to aid than complicate the ceasefire talks,” said Mike Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute. “By sending a message that Israel is willing and able to escalate, and that Washington will back it when it does so, the US and Israel have underscored the consequences for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran of continuing to refuse a deal.”

Hezbollah said its attack on Israel was planned as the start of retaliation for the killing of its commander Fuad Shukr on 30 July in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The group said it fired more than 320 missiles, followed up by drones, to target 11 army barracks and military sites in northern Israel.

The Mossad intelligence service’s base in Glilot was the main target of the attack, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a Security Cabinet meeting on Sunday and said he was “determined to do everything to defend our country, to return the residents of the north securely to their homes, and to continue upholding a simple rule: Whoever harms us — we will harm them.”

Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, noted that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke by phone over the weekend and that a top US commander in the region had visited twice recently. He declined to say whether the US was given advance warning of Sunday’s attack, adding, “This was an Israeli operation.”

The US has stepped up its naval and air defence presence in the region as a warning to Iran and its allies not to increase hostilities.

Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder referred questions about Sunday’s operation to Israel. “We continue to closely monitor the situation and have been very clear that the US is postured to support the defence of Israel,” said Ryder.

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire along the border since October when the Lebanese organisation entered the fray in support of Hamas in Gaza. Israeli strikes have killed at least 500 people since then, most of them Hezbollah fighters. In Israel, roughly 30 soldiers and 18 civilians have been killed by Hezbollah attacks.

Preventing the skirmishes from escalating even further has been at the heart of international diplomatic efforts to ease tension across the Middle East.

Hours after an Israeli airstrike on 30 July killed Hezbollah’s military chief in Beirut, Iran blamed Israel for killing the head of Hamas’ political office, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Iran has vowed to retaliate but it has also said it would do so on its own timetable. Israel has repeatedly warned it not to do so.

On Sunday, Netanyahu warned Hezbollah and Iran that the latest attack was not “the end of the story,” and was “another step on the way to changing the situation in the north, and return our residents safely to their homes”.

The US has been trying to mediate between Lebanon and Israel to reach a compromise over border disputes. Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have been evacuated from the border area due to the fighting, and Israel wants Hezbollah to move its fighters away from the border to allow its citizens to return.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organisation by the US, says it will continue hostilities with Israel until the country agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas, also designated a terrorist group by the US and others.

The war in the Palestinian enclave began on 7 October after Hamas militants, supported by Iran, invaded Israel and killed 1,200 people and abducted others. Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 40,000 people, according to Hamas health officials in Gaza.

Hamas sending team to Cairo for update on ceasefire talks

Hamas said a delegation would travel to Cairo on Saturday evening to receive an update on negotiations aimed at achieving a ceasefire in Gaza.

In a statement, Hamas spokesperson Izzat Al-Rishq said the team, led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya, was travelling “at the invitation of the mediators in Egypt and Qatar”. He confirmed Hamas’s readiness to implement the terms agreed upon in July, based on a declaration from US President Joe Biden and a UN Security Council resolution.

Israeli negotiators, led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, were in Egypt’s capital on Friday in the latest effort to craft a truce in the war, now into its 11th month. They’ve since departed. Ceasefire talks could begin on Sunday but that could still change, an Israeli official said on Friday. Hamas would not directly participate in the talks, AFP reported, citing a senior official who wasn’t identified.

Before then, Mossad’s David Barnea was expected to hold discussions with Egyptian authorities about the war and Israeli forces’ control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, according to Israeli officials.

Al-Rishq said Hamas “calls for pressure on the occupation” and obligates it to implement the agreed-to terms.

Read more: Israel team heads to Cairo for new round of Gaza truce talks 

The Cairo round will be the latest in a months-long effort to pause or end the war.

On the table in Cairo is a proposal backed by the US, Egypt and Qatar that provides for a phased cessation of hostilities, the release of hostages held by Hamas, the freeing of many Palestinians in Israeli jails, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from areas of Gaza.

Read more: A small Gaza corridor turns into new Israel-Hamas sticking point

One key point of tension is over Israel wanting to keep troops stationed along the strategic Philadelphi corridor, the southern portion of Gaza that runs along the border with Egypt, to prevent arms smuggling from the Arab nation. Hamas opposes that, while Egypt is also wary of Israeli troops remaining.

Another sticking point is that Hamas wants a truce to amount to a permanent end to the war, while Israel says it needs to retain the right to restart fighting to achieve its aim of destroying the group. DM

Read more: Middle East crisis news hub